Rotary engines have housings that include chambers accommodating rotating rotors are disclosed by Lloyd in U.S. Pat. No. 4,018,191. A plurality of vanes movably mounted on the rotors function to move and compress an air and hydrocarbon fuel mixture in the chambers in response to rotation of the rotors. It is conventional practice to utilize springs to continuously bias the vanes into engagement with surfaces, such as the inside walls of housings forming chambers accommodating the rotors. Examples of rotary devices having spring-biased vanes associated with the rotors are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,242,692, 1,424,977 and 3,572,030. Rotary engines having spring-biased vanes movably mounted on the rotors have limited operating speeds. Centrifugal forces cause the vanes to move into frictional contact with the inside walls of the housings provided the chambers for the rotors. This frictional contact causes wear of the vanes and inside walls of the housings resulting in gas leakage past the vanes and excessive mechanial losses.
Rotary vane-type devices have been designed to positively position the vanes during the rotation of the rotors relative to the housings of the devices. The positive positioning of the vanes is achieved through rollers located within continuous cam tracks. Shank et al. shows, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,299,047, a vane-type rotary device having a rotor with a plurality of vanes. Rollers located in tracks positively control the location of the vanes during the rotation of the rotor.